Author: Nathalie Mbuyi

Patient Charter: A Tool for Community-Centred Care In a conference room overlooking the rapids of the Congo River, the Congolese Observatory for Consumer Rights, better known by its French acronym OC2D, convened on 27 November a diverse assembly of physicians, nurses, community representatives and technical partners. Their common agenda was the in-depth discussion of the Patient Charter drafted last April by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with multilateral and civil-society actors (Ministry of Health, April 2023). The document, only a few pages long yet dense in implications, codifies both rights and responsibilities for users of public health facilities, from…

Governance Meeting Sets Reform Agenda In the sun-lit council chamber of Bacongo’s town hall, the thirty-member management committee of the Bacongo Reference Hospital convened on 13 November 2025 under the chairmanship of arrondissement administrator-mayor Bernard Batantou. Director Dr Tanguy Fouémina presented the first-semester report in a session characterised by conciliatory exchanges and a shared determination to modernise one of Brazzaville’s busiest public health facilities (hospital report, 13 Nov 2025). Committee members, including delegates from the Departmental Directorate of Health, the Congo office of the World Health Organization and the Bacongo health district, unanimously agreed that “patients must remain at the…

A strategic medical hub for the Sangha Standing on the banks of the Sangha River, the freshly built General Hospital of Ouesso now dominates the northern skyline, embodying the government’s stated ambition to reinforce public health infrastructure in every department (ACI). During a working visit on 17 October, the Minister of Health and Population, Jean Rosaire Ibara, expressed “satisfaction” with the pace and quality of the works, insisting that the facility is ready for a phased commissioning. Although the project’s financial and architectural details were not publicly revisited during the tour, the minister underlined that the hospital is conceived as…

An Underestimated Epidemic in Brazzaville From his consulting room at the University Hospital Centre of Brazzaville, endocrinologist, diabetologist and nutritionist Dr Rolly Junior Louzolo Kimbembe voices a concern that remains curiously absent from many public debates: obesity is gaining ground, yet it is still approached with a striking lack of urgency. Questioned by the Congolese Information Agency, the physician recalled that the condition springs from a persistent imbalance between caloric intake and energy expenditure. In his words, it is described as “primary” when rooted in lifestyle or heredity, and “secondary” when hormonal disorders drive the weight gain. Although no recent…

Global Burden and WHO’s 2025 Call Every forty seconds, a person somewhere in the world takes his or her own life, adding up to more than 720,000 deaths every year according to consolidated data from the World Health Organization. The figure is higher than all annual deaths from armed conflicts and natural disasters combined, underscoring suicide’s standing as a foremost public health emergency. Adolescents are disproportionately affected: for those aged fifteen to nineteen, suicide is now the third leading cause of mortality (WHO, 2023). Against this backdrop, the WHO, together with partner agencies, has set the theme of the 2025…